Cocaine Haul: Bude Beach Cornish Coast of England

Bude is a coastal town in Cornwall, on the western coast of England. Bude is in the vicinity of Tintagel, which is believed to have been the home of King Arthur, the legendary Knights of the Round Table and Camelot. The United Kingdom is a treasure trove of historic places such as this.

I have never been to my namesake city, although I would love to travel to the Cornish Coast. Bude beach is famed in Great Britain as popular for surfing and beachcombers. Wild ocean waves crash up against dramatic jagged cliffs.

Bude has a reputation as a haven for drug smugglers, according to news reports in The Daily Mail UK.

Recently, the crashing waves delivered a surprising haul to the Cornish beaches. Bundles of cocaine, worth millions of pounds, have washed up on the shore.

According to a report in the U.K. Daily News, a Bude resident found the first suitcase sized bundle while walking his dogs on the beach. The resident, a clerk of the local parish council, found the two foot square package lying at the edge of the tide line and brought it home in a wheelbarrow. Reportedly, he didn't want to leave the package on the beach, where it could fall into the wrong hands.

The finder, named Frank Partridge, didn't know what was in the packages, but knew they were not a normal thing to find on the beach.

The packages of cocaine were were wrapped in netting and plastic to prevent contamination by sea water. Barnacles attached to the packages indicated that they may have been in the water for a long time. Officials do not know where the bundles of cocaine came from, but it is possible that they floated in the ocean from as far away as the Caribbean.

The origins of the cocaine bundles are a mystery. Officials believe that the bundles were either thrown into the sea by drug smugglers deliberately, or lost at sea ,by falling overboard in poor weather conditions.

Since the recovery of the first bundle of cocaine, more bundles have been recovered. Two of the bundles, found near Bude and Helston, have been confirmed by officials as cocaine. Tests are still being conducted on three additional bundles found on the Cornish beaches. According to the Daily Mail report, the bundles recovered so far could have a street value of over six million British Pounds.

BBC News reported that the cocaine in the two packages, that washed up in Bude and the Lizard Peninsula on February 7 and 8 amounted to 52 kilograms of the drug. BBC reports stated that the forensic analysis of the mysterious packages confirmed that the powder contained in the bundles was cocaine with a street value of 2.5 British Pounds.

The mysterious cocaine packages had been wrapped in layers of netting and plastic, that contained individually wrapped packages of cocaine powder.

The Guardian UK reported that some of the packages in the suitcase sized bundles were marked Columbia. Officials are concerned that the particularly pure cocaine could fall into the wrong hands If an innocent person consumed the pure cocaine they could be harmed. . Patrols of customs and coastguard officers are challenged with the duty to patrol the 500 mile stretch of the Devon and Cornwall coastline for additional bundles.

Using the currency calculator at x.rates.com the current conversion of the British Pound to the U.S. Dollar is 1 Pound to $1.98 USD.

2,500,000 British Pounds converts to $4,966,002 United States Dollars.

6,000,000 British Pounds converts to $11,918,406 United States Dollars.

However you calculate it, that is a bundle of cocaine.

Read Why You Shoud Visit London, England.
Read Historic Sites in the United Kingdom.